Whistle-Blower’s Complaint Is Said to Involve Multiple Acts by Trump

[BmorePat87]

(09-23-2019, 09:16 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Well, you've mentioned the major difference, which is obvious. But there are also many other differences. The other major one is that Trump's requests are out in the public and he is using his diplomatic authority to affect the political process. Obama specifically kept mum on the Trump investigation because of the refusal by McConnell and other Republicans to come out about it in a bipartisan way. Not wanting to tip the scales, Obama refused to make mention of it. Trump is doing this specifically to influence the election.

It should be noted here that the phone call in question was made the day after Mueller testified. It was fairly clear to Trump that there would not be any real consequences for the contacts his campaign team made with Russia in 2016, and now the day after that testimony he is reaching out for political help to a different foreign country. It may be coincidental in the timing, but there seems to be a trend.

Another big difference is that Obama ok'd an investigation based on findings from our intelligence community. The investigation into Biden is based on a conspiracy theory that doesn't make much sense and can be discredited fairly easily given that the prosecutor that was fired had world leaders from many countries demanding his head and Biden didn't have control over the resources Trump is claiming were threatened to be withheld.

Edit: This is also just explaining things, not trying to be snarky or anything. I've been listening to and reading some things on this all throughout the day.

As of last month, we do not know if Obama started the investigation or knew about it in its earliest stages. Lindsey Graham stated last month that he wants to subpoena Obama to find out when he was first told of the investigation. So at that level, it's significantly different, as far as we currently know.


There's also a difference between having your own intelligence agencies investigate an issue and asking another country to, as well as Trump allegedly suggesting money he was withholding would be released if the investigation occurred.

With regards to the charges, the FBI responded immediately to the release of hacked emails and a subsequent alert from the Austrian government that George Papadopoulos had told one of their officials that he was contacted by Russians about the emails well before their release, and Trump himself was never directly being investigated until he fired Comey a year later. In the Biden situation, it is being suggested without any evidence that Biden called for a Ukrainian prosecutor to be let go to prevent an investigation into a company his son worked for, though many leaders were calling for this guy to be let go because he tried to bribe companies by saying he wouldn't investigate them if they paid him. Also, the government still investigated the company for a year after the guy was let go. 

So one is a case of the FBI investigating a direct attack on the US election after receiving credible evidence from an ally while the other is a President allegedly bribing a country to investigate a baseless claim against a political opponent.